Introduction to
Sociology |
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Professor: Allison McKim |
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Course
Number: SOC 101 |
CRN
Number: 10218 |
Class cap: 22 |
Credits:
4 |
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Schedule/Location:
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Tue Thurs 3:30 PM
- 4:50 PM Olin 204 |
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Distributional Area: |
SA Social
Analysis D+J Difference and Justice |
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Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies |
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Sociology is the systematic study of
social life, social groups, and social relations. The discipline views the
individual in context of the larger society, and sheds light on how social
structures constrain and enable our choices and actions. Sociologists study
topics as varied as race, gender, class, religion, the birth of capitalism,
democracy, education, crime and prisons, the environment, and inequality. At
its most basic, the course will teach students how to read social science
texts and evaluate their arguments. Conceptually, students will learn basic
sociological themes and become familiar with how sociologists ask and answer
questions. Most importantly, students will come away from the course with a
new understanding of how to think sociologically about the world around them,
their position in society, and how their actions both affect and are affected
by the social structures in which we all live. |
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Wealth, Poverty,
and Inequality |
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Professor: Yuval Elmelech |
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Course
Number: SOC 120 |
CRN
Number: 10217 |
Class cap: 22 |
Credits:
4 |
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Schedule/Location:
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Tue Thurs 10:10 AM
- 11:30 AM Olin 204 |
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Distributional Area: |
SA Social
Analysis D+J Difference and Justice |
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Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Gender and Sexuality
Studies; Human Rights |
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Why do some people face severe economic
hardship and persistent poverty while others enjoy financial security and
experience upward mobility? What are the patterns and sources of this
inequality? Is inequality inevitable? Through lectures, scholarly works,
selected video excerpts, and class discussions, this course examines the
causes and consequences of socioeconomic inequality in the contemporary US.
Sociological theories are used to explain how and why socioeconomic
inequality is produced and maintained, and how it affects the well-being of
individuals and social groups. The course will focus on two general themes.
The first deals with the structure of inequality while studying the unequal
distribution of material and social resources (e.g., social status, earnings,
wealth, power). The second examines the processes that determine the
allocation of people to positions in the stratification system (e.g.
educational attainment, social capital, institutional discrimination,
parental wealth). |
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Intro to Political
Sociology |
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Professor: Karen Barkey |
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Course
Number: SOC 144 |
CRN
Number: 10225 |
Class cap: 22 |
Credits:
4 |
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Schedule/Location:
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Mon Wed
11:50 AM - 1:10 PM Olin
201 |
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Distributional Area: |
SA Social
Analysis |
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This course will address some of the
central concepts in political sociology, especially those dealing with power,
politics and the state. Political Sociology is about the relations between
states and societies; issues of power and domination; the role of knowledge
and power in state-society relations; state practices vis-à-vis society as
well as the responses from below, i.e. the ways that social groups organize
and respond to state policies and practices. We will start with the
foundations, discussing power and politics. Second, we will discuss the
origins of the modern nation-state and the processes of state-formation
across various regions of the world. We will then explore the advent of
democracy and the constituents of democratic rule. Finally, we will explore
how globalization has impacted each of these concepts. For each section, we
will read a conceptual, theoretical piece and follow this with a historical
or contemporary case study. The interplay between theory and case will give
us ample opportunity to see how political sociologists define concepts and
how they use them in their empirical settings. For each of these topics, I
will require that you write a summary thought piece after the discussion. |
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Deviance and Social
Control |
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Professor: Jussara dos Santos Raxlen |
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Course
Number: SOC 207 |
CRN
Number: 10226 |
Class cap: 22 |
Credits:
4 |
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Schedule/Location:
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Mon Wed 11:50 AM
- 1:10 PM Olin 203 |
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Distributional Area: |
SA Social
Analysis D+J Difference and Justice |
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All societies establish
norms of conduct for their members, and in all societies, some individuals
violate these norms and experience sanctions for doing so. However, not all violations
of norms are sanctioned. The sociological study of deviance examines how some
people and behaviors come to be defined and labeled as deviant in certain
contexts. The course addresses three critical questions: Who defines and
decides what norms must be upheld, and what is deviant? How do those
responsible for identifying and sanctioning deviant behavior understand or
explain the sources and causes of deviance? And last, how is deviant behavior
socially controlled informally (e.g., by peers) and through institutions
(e.g., law, and police)? We will discuss how standards, explanations, and
reactions to violations of social expectations of normality and deviance
always involve relations of power. Topics include mental illness; cults;
anti-establishment subcultures; neurodivergence;
non-conforming sexualities; youth and delinquency; crime and policing; and
public debates around morally controversial issues. |
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Sociological Theory |
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Professor: Jussara dos Santos Raxlen |
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Course
Number: SOC 213 |
CRN
Number: 10227 |
Class cap: 22 |
Credits:
4 |
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Schedule/Location:
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Mon Wed 10:10 AM
- 11:30 AM Henderson Comp. Center 106 |
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Distributional Area: |
SA Social
Analysis |
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Crosslists: Human Rights |
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What is “theory”? And what makes a
theory “sociological”? As we shall see, we often theorize and apply existing
social theories in our everyday lives. Simply put, a theory is a way of
understanding: making sense of all kinds of social phenomena, from
globalization to intimate interpersonal relationships. In this course, we
survey a range of social theories: those which are foundational to the
creation of sociology and all social sciences; those which focus on the rise
and transformations of modern society in the 19th and 20th centuries; and
those which are responses, critiques, or further developments of these other
theories. Our exploration will follow a chronological order of western
thought. But analytically, we will straddle between historical periods (and
the equivalent classifications of “classical” and “contemporary” sociological
theory) to emphasize the ongoing dialogue among different theoretical
traditions and attempts to provide alternative and more nuanced explanations
of an increasingly more diverse social world beyond a Eurocentric
perspective. First, briefly, we trace the ideas that paved the way to the
emergence of the social sciences from the European Enlightenment, which
grappled with notions about the nature of political authority vis à vis the
nature of humanity. Second, we delve into the theoretical accounts of a
period often referred to as Modernity. We engage with the ideas of
sociology’s “founding fathers” (Durkheim, Marx, Weber, and Simmel) and
America’s “first” sociologists (e.g., Jane Adams, Du Bois, and Perkins
Gilman). Once in the 20th century, we explore the theoretical conversations
among sociologists and other social scientists to understand the realities of
our recent past up until the present, considering various sociological
traditions (e.g., functionalism, symbolic interactionism, critical theory,
ethnomethodology, poststructuralism, postcolonial and feminist theory), and
read their contemporary interlocutors. |
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Punishment,
Prisons, & Policing |
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Professor: Allison McKim |
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Course
Number: SOC 224 |
CRN
Number: 10264 |
Class cap: 22 |
Credits:
4 |
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Schedule/Location:
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Tue Thurs 11:50 AM
- 1:10 PM Reem Kayden Center 101 |
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Distributional Area: |
SA Social
Analysis D+J Difference and Justice |
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Crosslists: Africana Studies; American & Indigenous Studies; Human
Rights |
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This course introduces students to the
sociology of punishment and criminal justice. The amount and type of punishment
found in society is not a simple, direct result of crime patterns. Rather, to
understand how and why we punish, we must examine the ways that historical
processes, social structures, institutions, and culture shape penal practices
as well as how systems of punishment shape society. This course draws on
sociological and historical scholarship to explore the social functions of
punishment, its cultural foundations and meanings, what drives changes in how
we punish and police, the relationship between penal practices and state
power, and the role of the system in reproducing race, gender, and class
inequality. The course digs deeply into research on the punitive turn in
American criminal justice over the last 4 decades. We consider the causes and
consequences of mass incarceration, its racial disparities, the drug war, the
effects of intensive policing, the politicization of crime, changing gender
dynamics, and the role of criminal justice in the welfare state. This course
fulfills the Difference & Justice distribution requirement because a
central task is to examine the role of racial inequality in the American
criminal legal system. |
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Pain and
Possibility: Black Feminism in Sociology |
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Professor: Jomaira Salas Pujols |
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Course
Number: SOC 279 |
CRN
Number: 10224 |
Class cap: 22 |
Credits:
4 |
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Schedule/Location:
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Tue Thurs 1:30 PM
- 2:50 PM Olin 203 |
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Distributional Area: |
SA Social
Analysis D+J Difference and Justice |
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Crosslists: Africana Studies; American & Indigenous Studies;
Gender and Sexuality Studies; Human Rights |
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This course examines Black women’s
contributions to sociological thought. We will have two major focus areas.
The first is that we will engage and think through the theories, practices,
and methodologies produced by Black feminist scholars, activists, and
artists. Our goal here is to become familiar with multiple strands of Black
feminist theories in sociology and to explore how Black women have used them
as tools make sense of and address social conditions. Second, the course is
concerned with attending to the social, political, and economic experiences
of Black women. Using a comparative and intersectional approach, we will
interrogate how Black women navigate and resist subjugation in areas much as
medicine, education, the workplace, and criminal justice. Students will leave
the course with a foundation in the major theories, methods, and analytic
approaches of Black feminist sociologists. |
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Social Problems |
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Professor: Yuval Elmelech |
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Course
Number: SOC 332 |
CRN
Number: 10265 |
Class cap: 15 |
Credits:
4 |
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Schedule/Location:
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Wed 3:30 PM
- 5:50 PM Olin 309 |
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Distributional Area: |
SA Social Analysis
D+J Difference and Justice |
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Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Human Rights |
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This course explores the causes,
development, and consequences of various social problems in the U.S.
Particular emphasis will be placed on the examination of disparities in
socioeconomic status (e.g. education, poverty, employment, and wealth). We
will begin with an introduction to social problems as a field of sociological
inquiry and discuss the merits of problem-centered approaches to social
research. Drawing on various sociological perspectives we will then identify
the varied social structures that facilitate and help perpetuate social
problems. In the remainder of the semester we will investigate specific
social problems. Topics will include: wealth and economic security; schools
and education; racial and ethnic inequality; work and employment; immigration
and mobility; gender inequality; and social problems related to the family.
The course will also provide a framework for developing the skill of academic
writing, and the appropriate use of theories and empirical evidence. In
particular, this seminar will serve upper-level students who are developing
their research and analytical skills for term papers and senior projects.
Fulfills American Studies Junior Seminar requirement. |
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Tricks of the
Trade: Qualitative Research Practicum |
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Professor: Jomaira Salas Pujols |
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Course
Number: SOC 333 |
CRN
Number: 10266 |
Class cap: 12 |
Credits:
4 |
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Schedule/Location:
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Tue 3:10 PM
- 5:30 PM Olin 309 |
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Distributional Area: |
SA Social
Analysis |
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Crosslists: American & Indigenous Studies; Environmental Studies;
Environmental & Urban Studies; Global & International Studies; Human
Rights |
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To study social life, researchers often
turn to methods of inquiry based on interviewing people, observation, or
examining the meanings of texts like ads and news coverage. This course gives
students instruction in how to conduct this kind of qualitative research,
focusing on ethnography (participant observation), in-depth interviewing, and
discourse/content analysis. The course is ideal for moderated students from
various majors who plan to use these research methods for their senior
project or those who are interested in pursuing social research in the
future. The class offers both conceptual grounding and practical training.
Students will develop and conduct a qualitative research study. To do this,
students will engage epistemological questions about how we create knowledge
and learn the nitty-gritty aspects of how to design and carry out research.
These include techniques for taking field notes, conducting interviews,
picking case studies, and interpreting and analyzing qualitative data. In the
process, students will learn about debates over objectivity, power,
inequality, and perspective in social research. The course offers training in
research ethics and human subjects (IRB) review. Note: this course does not fulfill the
sociology program 300-level seminar requirement. It does count as an elective. |
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Empires,
City-States & Nation-States: An exploration of the social and political
dimensions of Rule |
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Professor: Karen Barkey |
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Course
Number: SOC 348 |
CRN
Number: 10267 |
Class cap: 12 |
Credits:
4 |
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Schedule/Location:
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Mon 3:10 PM
- 5:30 PM Olin 308 |
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Distributional Area: |
SA Social
Analysis |
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Crosslists: Historical Studies |
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Nation-states as territorially bounded
sovereign polities are a relatively novel form of governance and since their
emergence they have sometimes modeled themselves on larger scale alliances
and unions that may remind us of empires. Empire, on the other hand, a
different form of political organization, has existed since antiquity and has
endured past the era of colonialism. They endured as layered civilizations, a
bricolage of peoples and cultures, through violent expansion but also by
creating some sort of PAX in international and internal political relations.
Similarly, at a different scale, city-states were determined by geography and
the absence of strong central political structures. They were organized
around cities as centers of political, social and economic life and claimed
sovereignty over a neighboring territory. This course will explore the three
different models of political and social governance in historical and
comparative fashion. We will first study concepts of state, power, and
governmentality before we discuss cases. We will study exemplary cases of
empire (The Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire); Italian city -states (as
well as contemporary city-states) and then explore transitions to
nation-states. Students will be guided to explore cases through comparative
historical and political analysis. |
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Cross-listed Courses:
The Right to
Employment |
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Course
Number: ECON 227 |
CRN
Number: 10678 |
Class cap: 22 |
Credits:
4 |
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Professor:
Kyle
Mohr |
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Schedule/Location:
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Tue Thurs 11:50 AM
- 1:10 PM Hegeman 204 |
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Distributional Area: |
HA Historical
Analysis D+J Difference and Justice |
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Crosslists: Africana Studies; American & Indigenous Studies;
Environmental & Urban Studies; Environmental Studies; Human Rights;
Sociology |
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